US merchants sprint for 11.11

Costco, Apple, bunch of US sneaker companies top sellers

John McPheters, co-founder and CEO of Stadium Goods, holds a Tmall mascot at the store in the SoHo neighborhood of New York on Oct 31. As one of the major players in the US sneaker resale market, Stadium Goods expanded into the growing Chinese market in 2016 through Tmall. Provided to China Daily

US brands from international big names to local niche ones are gearing up for Alibaba's Singles Day shopping festival that starts at midnight on Friday, the world's largest one-day online sales event.

This year, Singles Day sales are forecast at $23 billion, surpassing last year's $17.8 billion. In 2016, Alibaba's shopping festival - also known as 11.11 - logged a record $15.5 billion of sales from overseas stores. US sellers were the second most represented demographic, trailing only Japan.

In last year's Singles Day, US-based Costco was the top seller on the main Alibaba platform, Tmall. The company sold about $3.14 million worth of products in a single hour, according to Alibaba. Other popular US brands last year were Apple, New Balance, Skechers and Nike.

This year, Dennis Van Oossanen, vice-president of Nike Direct Greater China, said the company "will launch key styles, such as LEBRON XV ASHES, SF AF-1, AIR JORDAN XI WIN LIKE' 82 and specially designed products for China, to express on/off court basketball inspired lifestyle."

"We will fulfill the consumer demands from 10 distribution centers and 50 Nike Direct stores, which gets us closer to where our consumers are," he wrote in an email to China Daily.

Stadium Goods, one of several sneaker resale companies in the US market, entered the Chinese market in 2016. The New York City-based company is just two years old.

"We had our first 11.11 last year, even though we were very new on the platform, it was our largest growth in a day," said John McPheters, co-founder and CEO of Stadium Goods.

"We now have very high hopes for how we are going to do on Tmall on 11.11. We think it's going to be our largest day ever," he said. "I expect to do probably $3 million on that day."

McPheters said that "even though we have some compelling offers, we don't have many deep discount products that people are looking for. But I do think it's an important holiday for us to grow the brand and share with people who don't know who we are."

"We've already seen lots of activities through the presale on TMall. But we have lots of very strongly prized offerings for 11.11 We also have coupons, special promotions that will be doing, and we will also be doing our in-house live broadcast from our store during 11.1," he said.

Alibaba says 140,000 brands - some 60,000 of them international labels - will offer more than 15 million products this year on Tmall. Alibaba has pledged that this year's 24-hour shopping extravaganza will be an international one. It plans to offer more foreign products and services to mainland Chinese buyers.

"International is playing more of the part in 11.11," said Lee McCabe, vice-president of Alibaba at North America. "If you look last year, 234 countries are represented on 11.11. If you look at percentage that buyers purchased last year, 37 percent of products are made by international consumers. It shows how fast this day has been internationalized and how fast it has become relevant to international community."

The 11.11 event will be held in Shanghai and broadcast nationwide through satellite and online. At the Gala, Nike will launch the LBJ XV "China CW", a special design only for the China market.

Singles Day started in the 1990s by university students as a day to celebrate being single. In those early years, celebrations were casual. People bought things for themselves and spent time together at bars. Retailers soon took over, and millions of shoppers rushed to China's online stores to score the best deals of the year.

There are 7,000 US brands on Tmall and the number is getting bigger. Among them, nearly 3,000 first entered the Chinese market through Tmall. The brands mainly cover apparel, shoes, health products, maternal and baby products and digital, ranging from major retailers like Macy's, Costco and Target, to small retailers like Jewelry.com and 100% Pure.

"A few brands I would highlight, Victoria's Secret, Macy's, Levis, Lulu Lemon, Nike. They are just great partners and great examples of North American companies that we partnered with very tightly and absolutely tapping into this huge opportunity that is China, that is Alibaba," said McCabe.

"China really has become an incredible market especially in e-commerce, which is very attractive for US brands," said Lee.

He said that by 2019, 29 percent of global online shoppers will be in China, and 50 percent of global e-commerce sales will happen in China.

xiaohong@chinadailyusa.com